Metacentre and ship stability (Bouguer)
Metacentro y estabilidad del buque (Bouguer)
- Date
- 1746 · confidence high
- Place
- Le Croisic, Pays de la Loire, France
- Credited to
- Pierre Bouguer
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
In the 'Traité du navire' Bouguer defined the metacentre, the point whose position relative to the centre of gravity determines whether a heeled hull returns upright. It gave naval architects a mathematical criterion of stability.
Euler and Daniel Bernoulli developed the analysis independently and almost simultaneously; the notion of stability also appears in Huygens.
What it led to
- Euler's Scientia navalis (1749)
- stability calculations for merchant and war ships
- safety criteria of classification societies